Friday, October 12, 2012

Interview With LeGrand Richards

Since mentioning the issue of race yesterday, my mind reflected upon an interview I'd read some time back.

A couple of months after the Church announced all worthy males would be able to hold priesthood, apostle LeGrand Richards was interviewed about the matter. Few members of the Church are aware of that interview. Because we do not have much information available about the meetings of the Twelve during the period of time these things were decided upon, I thought some may be interested in Elder Richards' views.

WALTERS: On this revelation, of the priesthood to the Negro, I've heard all
kinds of stories: I've heard that Joseph Smith appeared; and then I heard
another story that Spencer Kimball had, had a concern about this for some time,
and simply shared it with the apostles, and they decided that this was the
right time to move in that direction. Are any of those stories true, or are
they all?

RICHARDS: Well, the last one is pretty true, and I might tell you what provoked
it in a way. Down in Brazil, there is so much Negro blood in the population
there that it's hard to get leaders that don't have Negro blood in them. We
just built a temple down there. It's going to be dedicated in October. All
those people with Negro blood in them have been raising the money to build that
temple. If we don't change, then they can't even use it. Well, Brother Kimball
worried about it, and he prayed a lot about it.

He asked each one of us of the Twelve if we would pray - and we did - that the
Lord would give him the inspiration to know what the will of the Lord was. Then
he invited each one of us in his office - individually, because you know when
you are in a group, you can't always express everything that's in your heart.
You're part of the group, you see - so he interviewed each one of us, personally,
to see how we felt about it, and he asked us to pray about it. Then he asked
each one of us to hand in all the references we had, for, or against that
proposal. See, he was thinking favorably toward giving the colored people the
priesthood.

Then we had a meeting where we meet every week in the temple, and we discussed
it as a group together, and then we prayed about it in our prayer circle, and
then we held another prayer circle after the close of that meeting, and he
(President Kimball) lead in the prayer; praying that the Lord would give us the
inspiration that we needed to do the thing that would be pleasing to Him and
for the blessing of His children. And then the next Thursday - we meet every
Thursday - the Presidency came with this little document written out to make
the announcement - to see how we'd feel about it - and present it in written
form. Well, some of the members of the Twelve suggested a few changes in the
announcement, and then in our meeting there we all voted in favor of it - the
Twelve and the Presidency. One member of the Twelve, Mark Petersen, was
down in South America, but Brother Benson, our President, had arranged to know
where he could be reached by phone, and right while we were in that meeting in
the temple, Brother Kimball talked with Brother Petersen, and read him this
article, and he (Petersen) approved of it.

WALTERS: What was the date? Would that have been the first of June, or
something?

RICHARDS: That was the first Thursday, I think, in May. [June?] At least that's
about when it was. And then after we all voted in favor of it, we called
another meeting for the next morning, Friday morning, at seven o'clock, of all
the other General Authorities - that includes the Seventies' Quorum and the
Patriarch and the Presiding Bishopric, and it was presented to them, and there
were a few of the brethren that were out presiding then in the missions, and so
the Twelve were appointed to interview each one of them.

***

WALTERS: Now when President Kimball read this little announcement or paper, was
that the same thing that was released to the press?

RICHARDS: Yes.

WALTERS: There wasn't a special document as a "revelation", that he
had and wrote down?

RICHARDS: We discussed it in our meeting. What else should we say besides that
announcement? And we decided that was sufficient; that no more needed to be
said.

WALTERS: Was that the letter you sent out to the various wards?

RICHARDS: And to the Church; and to the newspapers, yes.

VLACHOS: Will that become a part of "scripture"?

RICHARDS: Yes, I've already thought in my own mind of suggesting we add it to
the Pearl of Great Price, just like those last two revelations that we've just
added.

WALTERS: Will this affect your theological thinking about the Negro as being
less valiant in the previous existence? How does this relate? Have you thought
that through?

RICHARDS: Some time ago, the Brethren decided that we should never say that. We
don't know just what the reason was. Paul said, "The Lord hath before
appointed the bounds of the habitations of all men for to dwell upon the face
of the earth," and so He determined that before we were born. He who knows
why they were born with black skin or white and so on and so forth. We'll just
have to wait and find out.

WALTERS: Is there still a tendency to feel that people are born with black skin
because of some previous situation, or do we consider that black skin is no
sign anymore of anything inferior in any sense of the word?

RICHARDS: Well, we don't want to get that as a doctrine. Think of it as you
will. You know, Paul said "Now we see in part and we know in part; we see
through a glass darkly. When that which is perfect is come, then that which is
in part shall be done away, then we will see as we are seen, and know as we are
known." Now the Church's attitude today is to prefer to leave it until we
know. The Lord has never indicated that black skin came because of being less
faithful. Now, the Indian; we know why he was changed, don't we? The Book of
Mormon tells us that; and he has a dark skin, but he has a promise there that through
faithfulness, that they all again become a white and delightsome people. So we haven't anything like that on the
colored thing.

WALTERS: Now, with this new revelation - has it brought any new insights or new
ways of looking at the Book of Abraham? Because I think traditionally it is
thought of the curse of Cain, coming through Canaanites and on the
black-skinned people, and therefore denying the priesthood?

RICHARDS: We considered that with all the "for's" and the
"against's" and decided that with all of that, if they lived their
lives, and did the work, that they were entitled to their blessings.

WALTERS: But you haven't come up with any new understanding of the Book of
Abraham? I just wondered whether there would be a shift in that direction. Is
the recent revelation in harmony with what the past prophets have taught, of
when the Negro would receive the priesthood?

RICHARDS: Well, they have held out the thought that they would ultimately get
the priesthood, but they never determined the time for it. And so when this
situation that we face down there in Brazil - Brother Kimball worried a lot
about it - how the people are so faithful and devoted. The president of the
Relief Society of the stake is a colored woman down there in one of the stakes.
If they do the work, why it seems like that the justice of the Lord would approve
of giving them the blessing. Now it's all conditional upon the life that they
live, isn't it?

WALTERS: Well, I thank you for clarifying that for me, because you know, out in
the streets out there, there must be at least five, ten different stories about
the way this happened.